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Had enough

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Everything posted by Had enough

  1. Figure things out now. Take time off to figure things out, if possible. It will only get harder in med school, training and practice. The medical profession and mental health don’t mix well.
  2. Thanks for the suggestion. We are both in therapy now. But the use continues. I would say for 9 months, he has been binging every 1-2 months. It results in a disruptive week, but everything returns to “normal.” I think he hits such a low each time that he is scared until he conveniently forgets. More than once, he is so sleep deprived, he forgets who I am. I have learned that I am angry all the time. It’s a mess. But it isn’t easy to detach from someone you’ve loved for 25 years.
  3. My partner quit adderall for 2 years after a steroid addiction. For the last 9 months, he has been “dabbling.” He doesn’t have easy access to the stuff, but whenever he does, he cannot resist getting a few pills and binging for 3-4 days, usually with little to no sleep, and lsometimes psychotic breakdowns. There is always an excuse, a work project, blah blah.
  4. Well folks, it’s almost 3 years later. Here is the update: I threatened to leave my husband and he managed to quit for over two years. We have been in a very good place off adderall. He realized after some time that he doesn’t really need adderall to work, even wrote a book. I wish this was a happy ever after story, but he has relapsed over the last few months. A few pills every few weeks or months. We have not returned to the previous lows but they feel inevitable. In retrospect, I wish he had take more responsibility for some of the damage he created on adderall, then I think it would have been harder to go back to it. And maybe if I had left him then...maybe he would be better off.
  5. Interested in lifestyle changes that have helped you quit adderall. I assume good diet, regular sleep, exercise, enough empathetic support, and perhaps a multivitamin. What else? What worked for you?
  6. Any suggestions for rehabs (anywhere in the country is fine) that have some experience with adderall addicts?
  7. My spouse is addicted to adderall. He is a college professor too. The demands of his job are immense. I'm writing for some advice about when is the right time to quit. I was hoping he would quit over the winter break but he buckled and got another bottle, because the work really never ends. He has stacks of grading and a conference to arrange. At the end of next semester,  there is a whole summer and a sabbatical semester. But I'm afraid we won't survive another semester intact. Our marriage is on the rocks and he is alienating colleagues with his erratic behavior. 

  8. I'm another spouse who has found this site incredibly helpful. My husband is still taking adderall, willing to quit, but not willing to admit the extent of its destruction. We are at the beginning of our quit journey, I hope. May I ask how your spouse quit and how did you help him? 

    1. oswhid

      oswhid

      Just saw this.  I can tell you that I broke all the "rules".  Everyone says that no one can make an addict quit if they aren't ready.  While that is true as far as it goes I knew that my husband would never be "ready" due to being an older person who while very intelligent, is very self unaware.  He grew up in the sixties as a nerd who didn't drink and didn't smoke pot.  He never viewed his prescription as anything other than medicine and not the speed that it actually was.  I made him quit by brute force plain and simple. I made the choice that either I was going to make him quit or he was going to divorce me.  And it was touch and go.  I was relentless.   I made him listen. And we went through about 6 months that had nothing on a Jerry Springer show.  I'm surprised the cops didn't show up at our door.  He had absolutely no interest in this website but I kept at it until he listened to me read posts from here for hours.  I took the shotgun approach.  I told him that I never thought that he was a coward.  The person I knew ran a marathon when a doctor advised them not to due to a foot infection. I told him that I wish his mother was still alive to see what had become of him.  I said everything hoping that something would stick.   I read all the health side effects that he was experiencing that he tried to rationalize was caused by something else.  I can't tell you for sure what finally go through.  But drip by drip it must have.  We just went out to eat on for New Year eve and I am happier than I have been since circa 2005. I was at the end of my rope but wanted to know that if I walked away it wouldn't be until I gave it my all first.  But the willingness to walk away was the key because it gave you the freedom to go for broke so to speak.

    2. oswhid

      oswhid

      As far as how he quit - he had about a week off of work due to a minor procedure and quit then.  He then came home from work utterly exhausted for a few weeks after but pushed through.  Getting a full eight hours of sleep was the most helpful.  He also drank energy drinks and and got plenty of caffeine in the mornings but stopped around noon as not to interfere with sleep.  He takes several supplements but not really sure how much they help.  He's at 7.5 months right now and is just starting to really try to get motivated to exercise.  If he can stick with it, I think it will what gets him over the hump once and for all.  As far as how I helped, I tried to make sure that the only thing he has to do is go to work and come home and that is it.

       

  9. Yes, I don't have much faith in his psychiatrist. I'm looking for a psychologist who specializes in substance abuse. However, the more we talk about things, the less he seems willing to admit a problem. Apparently there have been serious complaints at work about his behavior. He thinks it's a political plot. At least we've been able to talk without screaming at each other and I've been trying to make him realize that I am in fact "on his side." I've taken his pills and have been really strict about how many pills he gets a day. This helps at least in the short term until he can agree to get real help. In the meantime I plan to visit with a lawyer and plan my exit, in case it comes to that.
  10. Thank you for your support! He must be aware on some level that he is in trouble. He said he has already browsed this site, which means he knows he needs to quit, but also said it's a collection of the worst possible stories. We had another talk this morning and he asked me to stop pathologizing him. But this site, and your words specifically, have been beyond helpful for me. It's given me clarity about the situation. No more second-guessing myself.
  11. My husband and I have been together for over 20 years. We have endured a lot and our love is strong. We both have demanding professional careers that have afforded us great stability. We have 2 beautiful young boys. When my husband was in his teens, he experimented heavily with drugs, mostly cocaine. A few years ago he began to dabble a bit here and there. We were living in different cities and I believe he was doing much more than I realized at the time. When we moved back in together, I quickly realized the situation, and signed him up with a personal trainer. He got his act together, but unfortunately still had contact with his drug dealer. Some time later he got a few adderall pills from this dealer. At first it seemed to help. He felt no need to do cocaine and it seemed to be treating his ADHD, which he likely has (but was still exceptionally functional in his creative field). Fast forward to today and our life is crumbling before my eyes. He found a psychiatrist to give him a legit prescription but I have to control the dosing otherwise he takes all his pills in 2 weeks. When he is taking too much, he is manic, hyperfocused on work, ignores his children, and I'm still doing the lion share of domestic work. He drinks excessively and chain smokes and I suspect needs Valium to sleep. When crashing, he's exhausted and volatile. His body seems to need more. When I carefully handed him his prescribed dose, his moods were tolerable, but 60 mg per day doesn't seem to work anymore. I have become especially alarmed because there is now evidence that he is not keeping up with work, alienating friends and colleagues, and recontacted his dealer for extra pills when he ran out last month. We argue so much more. Any little thing sets him off. Tragically I don't trust him alone with the kids cause he is too distracted and self-absorbed. He is aware and not aware. He has had an objectively difficult year so he often reminds me of that when I focus on the adderall. But he actually emailed his psychiatrist saying he needs help to quit next month but also said he would want occasional pills for big projects (occasional use is a joke and would never work). I don't want to wait for something tragic to happen. I plan to insist on quitting now and not in a month (he actually has time off from work for the next few weeks so now is the best time), erase his dealer's number from his phone and find a therapist to help us through this. If he doesn't agree I'm leaving before my kids get hurt and/or he has a psychotic breakdown. I still have to pinch myself that I'm dealing with this horrow show.
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